Parker Show keeps on garnering raves

Published 11:45 pm, Sunday, February 10, 2013

Spurs guard Tony Parker and Nets guard Keith Bogans show different reactions after Parker hit a first-half basket. Parker finished the game with 29 points, 11 assists and no turnovers.

Spurs guard Tony Parker and Nets guard Keith Bogans show different reactions after Parker hit a first-half basket. Parker finished the game with 29 points, 11 assists and no turnovers.

Photo: Kathy Kmonicek / Associated Press

Parker Show keeps on garnering raves

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BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Spurs point guard Tony Parker spun into the paint at the Barclays Center on Sunday night for what felt like the 100th time in the third quarter alone, Deron Williams gasping in his wake.

Pirouetting toward the rim, he blindly lofted a perfect rainbow just over the outstretched arms of Kris Humphries that found the bottom of the net as if by homing device.

A crowd of 17,014 mostly hardscrabble Brooklyners, presumably Nets fans watching their team get taken apart in the Spurs' 111-86 victory, ooohed in appreciation.

“I guess there were a lot of French people in the crowd tonight,” Parker said. “Paris is not too far from New York.”

Perhaps it is high time the domestic basketball fan takes notice of what Parker is doing with the Spurs.

A few more nights like Sunday ought to do the trick. That's because Parker, on national TV, in New York City, with the Spurs still without All-Star forward Tim Duncan and super sub Manu Ginobili, engineered a smackdown of the playoff-aspiring Nets.

The Spurs' lone healthy All-Star threw in 29 points, handed out 11 assists and had no turnovers, playing Sherpa to his team's 12th victory in the last 13 outings.

“Tony's the guy who makes it run,” Carlesimo said. “He's the one they can't afford to lose.”

Parker made Carlesimo look prescient Sunday, bringing the Spurs back with a dazzling array of plays — an up-and-under duping of Lopez for one basket, a pull-up jumper on Williams, his former Western Conference nemesis, an over-the-shoulder dish to Boris Diaw for a layup.

By the time Parker was done dissecting Brooklyn, his “beyond All-Star” game on full display, the Spurs had salvaged their best win in some time in their first Barclays Center visit.

Nobody in the visiting locker room seemed surprised.

“Tony's been doing it night in and night out since I've been here,” Gary Neal said. “It's just in San Antonio, we don't get a lot of attention.”

If it took Duncan and Ginobili being out for the rest of the world to fully notice him, Parker says he doesn't care.

“I prefer winning (a) championship over having my due,” Parker said.

Sunday, Parker could have the best of both worlds. With a big game in a big win on a big stage, he left Brooklyn the toast of New York.